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Tune o’ the Day

The band U2 has played its rock ballad “One” at every concert since 1991. Apparently, other folks like the song, too. Rolling Stone ranks it as number 36 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

According to Bono, the song is about coming together. “It’s not saying we even WANT to get along,” he said, “But that we HAVE to get along in this world if it is to survive.”

As is often the case, the lyrics are maddeningly vague. Some even speculate that the song relates a conversation between a father and his HIV-positive gay son.

In 2003, Q Magazine named “One” the greatest song of all time. I don’t know about that, but this version by Johnny Cash is a personal favorite.

One

By Johnny Cash, 2000Written by U2

Is it getting better,
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now
If you’ve got someone to blame?

You said one love, one life,
When it’s one need in the night.
One love, we get to share it.
It leaves you, baby, if you don’t care for it.

Did I disappoint you,
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love,
And you want me to go without.

Well, it’s too late, tonight,
To drag the past out into the light.
We’re one, but we’re not the same.
We get to carry each other.
Carry each other.
One.

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head?

Did I ask too much — more than a lot?
You gave me nothin’ — now it’s all I got.
We’re one, but we’re not the same.
Well, we hurt each other, and we’re doin’ it again.

You say love is a temple — love the higher law.
Love is a temple — love the higher law.
You ask me to enter, then you make me crawl.
And I can’t be holdin’ on to what you’ve got
When all you’ve got is hurt.

One love, one blood, one life —
You’ve got to do what you should.
One life with each other. Sister. Brothers.
One life, but we’re not the same.
We get to carry each other.
Carry each other.
One.